Since this entire blog is dedicated to Han and Leia, I may be breaking some sort of unwritten code here, but I was thinking about other fandoms today. As for myself, I have never written in another fandom nor have I had the desire to. Maybe that's not entirely true, I may have thought about a few other of my favorite characters/stories, but none have ever "talked" to me like Han and Leia do, so I refrained from even attempting to write anything.
In the same vain, I have tried to read from other fandoms, but just could never get interested in anything other than Star Wars. I mostly read just Han and Leia stories. Although I may read a story that just has one or the other of the two. The only EU characters that I sort of nurse an interest in is Jaina and Jag. Don't know why, but I kinda like those two. Can't write 'em though.
So this got me thinking. I see many of the authors out there who have written in several different fandoms. Sometimes in tandem, but sometimes, apparently exhausting one fandom and totally abandoning it for another. For instance, I know of some fanfic writers that were formally Han and Leia writers who have left and gone to Harry Potter - never to return. How and why does this happen?
Of course, I wonder about this particularly concerning the Han/Leia fandom. I have a bunch of bookmarks on my computer to all of these Han and Leia pages/forums/etc. that have been abandoned for years. It really makes me feel like I wish I had been around in the heyday of Han and Leia fanfic writing and that I have indeed "missed the boat" as far as that is concerned. Well, there's nothing I can do about that now other than try and create my own heyday, which I guess is exactly what I'm trying to do.
So, in conclusion to this post, that may or may not actually have any kind of point. Do you read/enjoy other fandoms? Have you written in other fandoms? Do you keep several fandoms alive at once? Or do you leave one and replace it with another?
And here's a pic (and a caption):
Leia: "'I can't believe we just did that."
Han: "Thank the gods, we just did that!"
Han: "Thank the gods, we just did that!"
I have tried reading in a few other fandoms, but I have found myself sticking with Star Wars. I only write for Star Wars or my own stories of my own invention.
ReplyDeleteI've only ever felt compelled to write for SW. The only other fandom I've read was for a video game, but as you can imagine, video games don't really offer as much substance story-wise as movies. In other words, most of the time those stories were boring as hell. Well, they didn't grab me anyway, so I just stuck to nerdy game debates ;D.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm right there with you in terms of 'missing the boat'. I feel like I got to the party late.
Nice caption, although they look a bit too put together to have just done anything TOO fun ;)
ReplyDeleteI originally discovered SW fanfic because I found X-Files fanfic while looking for stuff about that show. I think I read two Mulder/Scully stories before I was like, wait, if there's X-Files fanfic, there must be SW fanfic, right? And boy, was I right! And I never read another X-Files story. It's only unfortunate that the first story I clicked on was Leia/Luke! I learned to read summaries more carefully after that instead of just clicking on the first story on the page. I think I might have read a couple of Lois & Clark stories way back also, but again, there's nothing that really gets to me the way that Han and Leia do. I don't remember the last time I even thought about looking for fanfics on another genre.
I know a lot of people have left for Harry Potter, which has like a zillion fics out there, and I like the movies and books but just have zero interest in reading fanfic about them. I wish people would quit leaving!
As for missing the boat, well, let's just try and pretend we missed the first one, but there's a later boat that's much cleaner and nicer ;)
In defense of my caption: Never underestimate a scoundrel... ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point on the caption. Comment withdrawn ;)
ReplyDeleteHonestly, people (I think) are leaving because HP is easier to write, fanfiction- wise at least. A lot more young adults are over at Harry, and that means more feedback. Star Wars holds such complex characters (besides, what do kids like me have against masters like yourselves?) and it's very hard to do. A ton of young people love Star Wars and Han/Leia but they know that Harry would be easier to get feedback on and young people would read their stories. I tend to write stories for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, if not only because that's where all the teenagers are. If I were to write a H/L story it wouldn't get nearly the reaction (reviews) that another story might recieve in another fandom.
ReplyDeleteEr, I hope that added to the conversation.
POTS
It is unfortunate that it seems you actually NEED a young audience in order to get decent feedback. And I really think it's a shame, because you can tell by the traffic counter that stories get hits but not a whole lot of people say anything. I know that most people probably have no idea how much it means to get a single review, or how much it sucks to be rewarded with... silence. And you're right, not getting reviews really does make people not want to write. I know we only do it for ourselves, but what't the point of posting if it seems like nobody is going to read it? Maybe someday the HP people will mature and move on to Han and Leia. I like Harry Potter and all, but no interest in reading or writing fanfic for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving us your POV and it is certainly a valid one. But you know, sometimes you have to write what's scary to you in order to get better. Reviews are nice and all, but blind praise doesn't really help, either, even if it does make you feel good for a bit.
I'm posting this for Hikari-No-Tsubasa because she is having trouble posting to our blog:
ReplyDeleteI completely understand how you feel. I don't actually know that I'm a Han/Leia fan
SPECIFICALLY. I love them, but I'm just as likely to read Han/Luke or gen
or...well anything relating to the OT. But I love the OT. I'll read a story
with Jacen and Jaina in it and I MIGHT suffer through a mention or two of
Mara... if I refused to read anything that accepted the prequels as canon I'd
have a VERY small pool of stories to choose from. But I'm not interested in
anything that isn't *focused* on the OT and the OT characters. I've spent a
LOT of time (more than I care to admit) trying to Google SOME kind of active
community for SW fic. Specifically, for OT-centric fic. And it makes me a
little sad and lonely to see that there really isn't much out there these
days.
Now, I am guilty of doing exactly what you talked about, abandoning one fandom
for another... but I don't really see it that way. I used to write for
Phantom of the Opera (most random thing for a SW fan to be into, I know), and
I really don't anymore. But before that I used to write fanfic (not that I
knew the word "fanfic" at the time) in my notebooks in high school... and a
lot of that was actually Star Wars. And Phantom. This was over 15 years ago.
I'll never stop loving either of those fandoms (or the two or three others I
keep coming back to), but which one I'm active in at the time DOES have a lot
to do with the social aspect of it. Back when I was writing for POTO on a
regular basis, there was an active forum and chat room I used to visit. I had
a lot of friends there. We didn't all ship the same pairings, and we didn't
all even like the same VERSIONS of the story, but there was a group of us that
all supported each other, and made a point of reading each other's fics and
giving meaningful feedback, whether it was in a review, a PM, or just a
shoutout on the forum. You could put out a request for a beta and have five
responses by the end of the day. It was GREAT. But little by little, we all
got out of it. One of those authors writes Doctor Who now, one writes Marvel
Comics. I write SW. One just sold her first short story, and some don't
write at all anymore. And we all got out of it, because that social aspect
was one of the things that made it SO MUCH FUN.
And there doesn't seem to be that with Star Wars right now. At least not for
the OT. I have ONE THOUSAND more hits for my 8-chapter Star Wars story than I
do for my 28-chapter POTO story. But only 26 reviews to 139. And most of
those 139 aren't empty praise. It's NICE to have people who care enough to
actually compliment (or critique, or both... that's the best) something
specific, and that I care enough for to do the same for them. I wish we had
that in this fandom, and if I'm ever NOT inspired to write or to review, that
lack of the social aspect is the main factor to blame. That might be why
people leave fandoms... I don't know.
(to be continued...)
Continued from hikari-no-tsubasa (sorry the format is screwy):
ReplyDeleteI think some people are just truly fickle. The people who came to POTO when
that movie came out in 2004 were probably into SW when ROTS came out in 2005,
and then moved on to Harry Potter or Twilight or something. And those people
aren't always the best writers or the most original, BUT sheer numbers do make
a fandom more exciting. With SW, I think we also have the problem that
Lucasfilm is SO ADAMANT about forcing the PT, TCW, and the EU on us that
oldschool OT fans either BECAME fans of the whole shebang or (despite the fact
that they still love Star Wars) got out of it in a public sense....because in
one sense, the SW that we love doesn't EXIST anymore. How many kids today
haven't even SEEN the version where Han shoots first? It's hard for me to be
active on theforce DOT net or something, because I want to explore AU
scenarios, what ifs... and what I consider fair game as far as being changed,
other people (MOST other people) seem to see as set in stone.
hikari-no-tsubasa